Brief Bio of J.J. (Jay) Carney:
I am Professor of Theology and African Studies and serve as the Amelia B. and Emil Gr. Graff Chair in Catholic Theological Studies at Creighton University, Omaha, Nebraska, USA, where I have taught since 2011. My scholarship lies at the intersection of history and theology with a particular focus on the Catholic experience in eastern and central Africa. I am especially interested in questions concerning modern church history, political theology, the theology of reconciliation, public religious leadership, church and state, ecclesiology, Ignatian spirituality and Jesuit history, and sport and theology. After completing a recent research study of base ecclesial communities in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, I am currrently working on two new research projects on the African Jesuit tradition and small Christian communities in Kenya. At Creighton, I teach courses including the Christian Tradition Global Visions, Church History, Sport and Spirituality, African Christianity, the Spirituality of Reconcliiation, and Christianity and the Rwandan Genocide. I have served as a U.S. Fulbright Scholar and Visiting Professor at Uganda Martyrs University in Nkosi, Uganda, and I have also taken Creighton students to Rwanda and Tanzania. I hold a B.A. in History and Political Science from the University of Arkansas (Fayetteville), a Masters of Divinity from Duke University, and a PhD in Church History from the Catholic University of America (Washington, DC). My wife Becky and I have 4 children: R.J. (20), Annabelle (18), Samuel (16), and Adelaide (12).
Published Books:
For God and my Country: Catholic Leadership in Modern Uganda (Wipf and Stock/Cascade's Studies in World Catholicism Series, 2020). Drawing on years of oral research, this book profiles seven Catholic leaders in postcolonial Uganda through the lens of Catholic Social Teaching, focusing on how their Catholic faith and theology shaped their contributions to Ugandan public life. It advances scholarship on Uganda's largest church, yet is pitched at college classroom audiences in the fields of social ethics, theology, church history, leadership studies, and African studies.
Contesting Catholics: Benedicto Kiwanuka and the Birth of Postcolonial Uganda (James Currey Press 2021; co-authored with Jonathon L. Earle, Centre College). This historical monograph offers a contextual intellectual biography of the most influential Catholic politician in 20th-century Uganda who was assassinated by Idi Amin in 1972. The book profoundly reframes standard accounts of Uganda's independence era (1958-1962) by bringing oft-overlooked Catholic activists back to the center. It also offers the most in-depth study of Kiwanuka's life and thought to date.
On the Eighth Day: A Catholic Theology of Sport (Wipf & Stock/Cascade, 2022, co-authored with Max Engel (Creighton University) and Matt Hoven (University of Alberta). The book offers an erudite yet accessible systematic theology of sport from a Catholic perspective designed for undergraduate and advanced high school classrooms. Topics include the spirit of play; sacramentality and sport; suffering in sport; ritual, superstition, and sport; virtue ethics and sport; Catholic social teaching and sport; and the history of Christian theology and sport.
The Surprise of Reconciliation in the Catholic Tradition (Co-Edited with Laurie Johnston; Paulist Press, 2018). The result of a three-year collaboration with 15 scholars, this volume's contribution comes through its broad historical range and scope, exploring global case studies in reconciliation and peacebuilding from the 1st century to today. Topics include St. Paul's understanding of social reconciliation, Muslim-Christian co-existence in medieval Spain, the medieval Peace of God movement, community resistance to Shining Path violence in Peru, and the practice of forgiveness in eastern Africa. Contributors explore how Christian practices such as monastic silence, sacramental anointing, and restitution can serve constructive roles in broader communal processes of social reconciliation.
Rwanda Before the Genocide: Catholic Politics and Ethnic Discourse in the Late Colonial Era (Oxford University Press, 2014). A detailed examination of the Catholic Church's controversial history in Rwanda, this book focuses on the period between 1952 and 1962 when Hutu-Tutsi tensions escalated into political violence. This book won the African Studies Association's Ogot Award for best book in eastern African studies in 2015.
Select Published Articles:
"Meet the Longest-Serving Native American Catholic Deacon in the USA,' America Magazine, September 11, 2025.
"The People Who Do All Things Together: Living Base Ecclesial Communities in the Democratic Republic of the Congo," Theological Studies 85.2 (2024): 262-86.
"Three Faces of Public Catholicism in Africa: Rwanda, Uganda, and the DRC," Journal of Religion and Society, Supplement 25 (2024): 159-75.
"Global Catholicism: Diverse, Troubled, Holding Steady," International Bulletin of Missionary Research 46.1 (2022): 25-34.
"Inculturating through the Lens of Liberation: John Mary Waliggo and the Renewal of Catholic Tradition in Africa," Journal of Moral Theology 10.2 (2021): 194-211.
"Benedicto Kiwanuka and Catholic Democracy in Uganda," Journal of Religious History 44.2 (2020): 212-229.
"How Uganda's award-winning Catholic radio station is changing the lives of its listeners," America Magazine, August 2019.
"Modern Roman Catholic Mission and the Legacy of Uganda's Emmanuel Cardinal Nsubuga," International Bulletin of Missionary Research (2018)
"Go Set Africa on Fire? Lessons in Evangelization and Globalization from Early Jesuit Missions in Ethiopia," Journal of Religion and Society (2018): 4-15.
"The Politics of Ecumenism in Uganda, 1962-1986," Church History 86.3 (2017): 765-95.
"Faithful Citizenship in the USA and Uganda: A Comparative Analysis of Recent Catholic Pastoral Letters on Politics," Journal of Religion and Society, Supplement 14 (2017): 80-95.
"Christendom in Crisis: The Catholic Church and Postcolonial Politics in Central Africa," Routledge Companion to African Christianity , edited Elias Bongmba. Routledge, 2016, 365-84.
"From Categorization to Communion Ethnic Identity and Catholic Reconciliation in Post-Genocide Rwanda," Journal of Religion and Society , Supplement 14 (2016): 189-201.
"A Generation of Genocide: Catholic Reconciliation in Rwanda," Theological Studies 76.4 (2015): 785-812.
"The Bishop is Governor Here": Bishop Nicholas Djomo and Catholic Leadership in Democratic Republic of Congo," in Leadership in Postcolonial Africa: Trends since Independence, edited Baba Jallow (Palgrave Macmillan, 2015)
"The People Bonded Together by Love: Eucharistic Ecclesiology and Small Christian Communities in Africa," Modern Theology (2014)
"The Danger of Description: The Ethnic Labeling of the Poor in Colonial Rwanda," Journal of Religion and Society, Supplement 10 (2013): 229-41.
"Beyond Tribalism: The Hutu-Tutsi Question and Catholic Rhetoric in Colonial Rwanda," Journal of Religion in Africa 42.2 (2012): 172-201.
"Far from having unity, we are trending towards total disunity: The Catholic Major Seminary in Rwanda: 1950-62," Studies in World Christianity 18.1 (2012): 82-102.
"Roads to Reconciliation: An Emerging Paradigm of African Theology," Modern Theology 26.4 (2010): 549-69.
"Reconsidering Ecclesia in Africa in the Shadow of the Rwandan Genocide," African Ecclesial Review (2008).